401(k) Monitor

Microsoft Corporation Savings Plus 401(k) Plan

Microsoft Corporation · Redmond, WA · EIN 911144442 · Plan 001 · Form 5500 for plan year 2024

What Microsoft put into the plan, per active participant

$9,360

Microsoft Corporation put $9,360 into this plan for each of its 123,878 active participants in plan year 2024. That is the whole employer side, matching money, profit sharing, non-elective and safe-harbor contributions and reallocated forfeitures together, because the Form 5500 reports them on one line, so it is not the match rate.

0 · least per person100 · most per person

Microsoft put in more per active participant than 93% of plans with 5,000+ participants in software and IT services. The middle plan in that group of 62 reported $4,620. Software and IT services comes from business code 511210, which Microsoft Corporation entered on its own Form 5500. Sponsors pick that code themselves, so a code that does not describe what the employer does ranks the plan against the wrong companies.

What this figure cannot separate: how much Microsoft pays, and how much it puts in

This is dollars, not a rate. A Form 5500 carries no payroll, so the figure reflects both how much the employer puts in and how much the employer pays: two plans running the same formula report different amounts when one pays better. Crossing the peer group with industry holds most of that difference still, and none of it disappears.

This is one plan year, not an average. A true-up, a plan merger or a one-off contribution moves a single year on its own.

Source: Form 5500 filing for the plan year ended December 31, 2024, received by the DOL June 27, 2025 · DOL EFAST2

What the plan cost, per participant

$181.82

The plan paid $181.82 per participant in plan-paid administrative expenses in plan year 2024, more expensive than 96% of plans with 5,000+ participants. The middle plan of that size paid $54.84.

Why a plan this big pays less per person before anything else

Bigger plans pay less per head by construction, because the same negotiated bill divides across more people. That is why this ranking sits inside the plan's own size cohort and is never taken across all plans.

Schedule H reports only what came out of plan assets. Fees the sponsor pays directly, and fees taken inside fund expense ratios, never appear here, so this is a floor and not the all-in cost.

401(k) Monitor Score

66 out of 100

Where this plan stands against plans of its size and industry on two amounts its Form 5500 reports: employer money in per active person, and plan-paid cost per person. It reads no match formula, no vesting schedule and no fund lineup, because a Form 5500 states none of them.

  • What the employer put in, per active participant: $9,360. Higher than 93% of plans with 5,000+ participants in software and IT services.
  • What the plan cost, per participant: $182. Cheaper than 4% of plans with 5,000+ participants.

How this score is built

On this page: the match and vesting terms · what to check next · every figure on the filing · fees itemised · the plans this one is ranked against · service providers

The match and vesting terms, from a Form 11-K

The match formula and the vesting schedule are stated in a Form 11-K, which is filed only by employers whose plan holds company stock. A Form 5500 reports neither.

What Microsoft puts in

Not stated in the filing

Only part of the match formula is disclosed in the filing, so the yearly dollars cannot be computed from it.

Two places state the terms in full: your plan’s Summary Plan Description, which your employer must provide on request, and your recordkeeper’s site, which for this plan is Fidelity NetBenefits.

What you contribute to collect all of it

Not stated in the filing

The filing does not state the contribution rate that collects the full employer contribution.

Vesting score

100 out of 100

How fast the employer’s money becomes yours. Higher than 48% of the 253 schedules we have scored.

It measures vesting speed and nothing else. It says nothing about the size of the match, what the plan charges, or the funds inside it.

Vesting scheduleImmediate

Share of the employer's money that is the worker's at hire and at each of the first 6 anniversaries: 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%. The score is the average of those 7 readings.

Vesting, word for word
Participants are fully vested in Plan accounts at all times.

The wait before the match starts and the year-end true-up appear above when the filing states them. Neither is part of the score, and a filing that is silent on one of them is not a plan without it.

The formula, the six-year window and a worked example

What the plan costs, against plans of its size

96th percentile

$181.82 per participant in plan-paid administrative cost, more expensive than 96% of plans with 5,000+ participants.

The match, vesting and eligibility terms above are read from the Form 11-K filed by Microsoft Corporation, whose page states the full formula, the vesting schedule and the sentence behind each one.

What to check next

  • What to ask about the fees

    This plan paid $181.82 per participant out of plan assets, more than 96% of plans with 5,000+ participants, where the middle plan paid $54.84. The filing does not say what the difference buys. Two questions put that to a benefits or HR team: what the recordkeeping and administration contract costs, and how much of it comes out of participant accounts rather than being paid by Microsoft. The lines this total is made of are further down.

  • Your own numbers are not on this page

    Every figure here is the whole plan for plan year 2024, taken from one filing and divided by headcounts. Your own contribution rate, your balance and the fees taken from your account are on your recordkeeper’s site, which this filing names as Fidelity NetBenefits. What you may put in during a year is set by the IRS and not by the plan: this year’s limits ↗.

Key figures

From Schedule H of Form 5500 filing 20250627162504NAL0005423731001, plan year 2024.
Total plan assets, end of year$65,646,011,638
Net assets$65,624,033,827
Participants, beginning of year177,531
Of which active123,878
Plan typeSingle employer
Size cohortThe peer group we rank fees against.5,000+ participants
Employer share of the money that went in, plan year 2024The rest came from employees, who put in $2,993,204,994. The share falls when employees save more, so a plan whose staff contribute heavily reads lower here through no act of the employer. It is printed as a fact and it is not part of the score.28%

Plan-paid administrative expenses

The plan paid $32,279,436 in administrative expenses in plan year 2024, across 177,531 participants: $181.82 per participant.

Contract administrator fees$95,850
Professional feesnot reported in filing
Investment management fees$31,786,959
Other administrative fees$611,947

These are plan-paid expenses from Schedule H only. Fees the sponsor pays directly, and fees embedded in fund expense ratios, never appear here. This figure is a floor, not the all-in cost, and a low number is not “free”.

The plans this one is ranked against

Fees on this page are ranked against the 5,000+ participant cohort, where the median plan pays $54.84 per participant. The sponsor files from Washington, one of 1,267 plans on file there, at a median of $128.90 per participant. Its business code places the plan in software and IT services, one of 2,956 on file, which run to a median of $125.69.

Plans of a similar size in Washington

The plans nearest this one by participant count, out of 31 in its peer group. Cost per participant is each plan’s own Schedule H figure, and a filing that reported no administrative expenses says so instead of showing a zero.
PlanParticipantsCost per participant
Costco 401(k) Retirement PlanCostco Wholesale Corporation255,370$23.38
The Boeing Company 401(k) Retirement PlanThe Boeing Co. And Consolidated Subsidiaries216,698not itemized
401(k) Savings PlanProvidence Health & Services109,907$58.59
Nordstrom 401(k) PlanNordstrom, Inc.108,781$101.96

Service providers (Schedule C)

Recordkeeper: Fidelity Investments (as filed: “FIDELITY INVESTMENTS INSTITUTIONAL”)

10,593 plans on file name Fidelity Investments as their recordkeeper, at a median of $97.71 per participant.

Providers from Schedule C, Part 1, Item 2 of filing 20250627162504NAL0005423731001. Direct compensation is paid from plan assets. Amounts in USD.
ProviderService codesDirect comp. ($)Indirect comp. ($)
Artisan Partners Limited Partnershi51, 68, 289,583,4500
Dimensional Fund Advisors51, 281,367,2800
Fidelity Investments Institutional65, 71, 64, 51, 371,503,5120
Pimco51, 282,102,1640
Russell Investments51, 2813,313,1500
Strategic Advisors, Inc.51, 273,520,925not reported
Ariel Investments51, 68, 28328,5600
Silvercrest Asset Management Group51, 68, 28820,8370

Source

DatasetDOL EFAST2 Form 5500 bulk data (FOIA)
Form year2024
Filing ACK_ID20250627162504NAL0005423731001
Dataset last refreshedJuly 28, 2026

Bulk dataset at askebsa.dol.gov ↗ · Look up the filing on EFAST2 ↗

Filings lag by design: a plan can file up to 9½ months after its year ends, so this is the newest data on file. Why filings lag

Cite this page

401(k) Monitor, "Microsoft Corporation Savings Plus 401(k) Plan: Form 5500 facts", from DOL EFAST2 filing 20250627162504NAL0005423731001, plan year ended December 31, 2024. 401(k) Monitor Score 66 out of 100 (exact value 66.49).